


Business Proposal

by SolarPoweredFlashlight



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 11:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16831717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarPoweredFlashlight/pseuds/SolarPoweredFlashlight
Summary: Captain Sarah Fortune is offered a job - collect a bounty on Katarina Du Couteau. That could be fun, but... she can think of something else that might be even more fun.





	Business Proposal

“You’re awfully out of place here, Noxian,” Fortune purrs, without bothering to make eye contact with the man across the table from her.

He tenses up and frowns. “How did you – “

“Everybody in this tavern knew you were an outsider from the moment you walked in. Don’t insult me,” she drawls, sitting back comfortably in her seat and scanning the room, monitoring the stranger from her peripherals.

“Not my intention to insult,” he says.

Interesting. Manners and humility from a Noxian? He must want this person very badly. Or perhaps he’s the brow-beaten underling of someone who doesn’t hesitate to punish perceived insults. She’s encountered both flavors of the mainlanders.

“What deal have you come to offer me, then?” She flicks her eyes his direction and enjoys the way he can’t maintain the stare. An underling, then. Not unusual.

He sits up a little straighter and starts to pull something out of his heavy cloak.

“Not here,” she snaps. There are vultures circling already. They can smell his inexperience. It would be bad for her reputation for anything unpleasant to happen to someone seeking her business. “I want the name and last known location of the target, the reward, and what they did to earn your master’s ire.”

“I come representing no one but myself, I assure you,” the Noxian asserts. Fortune fixes him with a look and watches him squirm. She doesn’t push the issue. She’ll get a better idea of who’s behind the offer once she has the details she needs to do the job.

She waits in silence.

It takes the poor mule a moment to realize he’s allowed to go on.

“The target is a murderer from Noxus, a tricky creature with dozens of confirmed victims.” The bounty hunter resists the urge to roll her eyes. They all think they’ll pique her curiosity and secure her help if they make a dramatic tale of it. “If you manage to capture her and deliver her to my contact, I’m prepared to pay you handsomely.”

“Such enticing generalities. Define your notion of ‘handsomely’, because it may well be different from mine.”

He slides a piece of paper across the table. Miss Fortune flips it over and reads it. She quirks an eyebrow.

“Interesting,” she says. This could either be a suspiciously large sum for an innocuous target, or a woefully insufficient sum for a dangerous, high profile target. “Who?”

“Katarina Du Couteau.”

“Interesting,” she says again. She lifts the piece of paper and rereads it _very_ carefully.

—

She’s in another seedy bar tonight. This one is on the shores of Noxus.

Fortune is hardly any better at fitting in than that poor Noxian was in Bilgewater, but at least _she_ does it on purpose.

Every head in the establishment turns to watch her strut past the bar, order a drink, and then settle happily in a corner. One panting hound comes to bay at her heel and offer her coppers.

“Poor thing, you don’t know who I am, do you?” she croons.

“No, but I’d like to,” he says, easing further into her personal space.

She tickles his chin with the end of Shock’s barrel. He freezes when the cold metal meets his skin. Silly bastard didn’t even see her draw it, did he?

“Ever heard of Sarah Fortune? That’s me. I’m told I have a reputation.”

He eyeballs her, cornered, terrified, _fascinated_. “Bloody shits it _is_ you.” She curls her lip at him in a very unpleasant looking way. He backs off. He’ll tell his buddies she was charging more than she was worth, undoubtedly.

The air is smoky. There’s no live music, which is a shame. Live music is the magical missing piece that makes any greasy pile of boards serving alcohol feel like home. There are soldiers playing cards at three tables. Arm wrestling competitions break out now and then, but most of the Noxians are here to get buzzed, not to have fun.

She’s through two drinks when the woman she’s come for appears in the alehouse doorway.

Katarina has a little murderous swagger in her step even when she’s tired and wearing her professional face. This is a figure that the men and women of this town have apparently learned not to follow unabashedly down the bar with their gaping mouths.

Kat scans the place and then comes right to her table and settles into the seat across from her, draping her arms over its back.

“Evenin’ sweetheart,” Fortune murmurs, with a wry smile. “Long day?”

“You have no idea. What’re you doing in this backwater shitstain of a town?”

“Here to see you, of course.” Fortune smirks. Katarina smirks. There’s really no other reason she’d appear in a dirty little Noxian nowhere like this.

“Business, or pleasure?” Katarina asks, half joking, half serious.

“Both,” Fortune says. She sees the tension, sees Kat’s already got a knife in each hand below the table from the movements of her arms. Poor sweetheart. Doesn’t trust her at all. That’s fine. “Someone put a bounty out on you.”

“Old news,” Kat says, trying for casual, succeeding, but not well enough to fool this old pro.

“Someone with the guts to make the offer to my face and seek me out specifically.”

“I hope it was at least a flattering pile of money.”

“Oh, nowhere near enough to interest me, but enough to interest any other bounty hunter. You know my policy; I target criminals, not political dissidents or soldiers. I’m not looking to get involved in any of your mainlanders’ wars.”

Kat relaxes.

“So,” muses the assassin, “did it just make you all lonesome, thinking about my face again?”

Sarah laughs. “I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to take you to bed.” She takes a sip of her drink and settles more comfortably into the chair. “I just thought it might interest you that they were offering to pay me in Noxian artifacts.”

“And why would that interest me?” asks Katarina, who knows the answer to that.

“That isn’t even the fun part. The contact they wanted you delivered to was in Demacia, despite the fact that their employer was very clearly a powerful Noxian with access to some sort of treasury.”

“Ugh, fuck me. As if I need this right now.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. It was a clumsy attempt at best. Thought you might like to have the information, though.”

Now Katarina reaches across the table, plucks Fortune’s drink from her hand, and takes a long drink. She sets it down between them. “I hate politics,” she says. Kat strokes a finger along the rim of the cloudy glass. “You came all this way to tell me that?”

“I’m on my way elsewhere. Only here for the night.” She catches Kat’s eye and smiles, wearing her hunger for the woman openly on her face. Kat’s eyes flick down shamelessly to take in the obscenely low neckline of her shirt for the first time since she walked in.

“You _did_ miss me, you salty old nympho,” Kat laughs. This time when she reaches across the table it’s to stroke Fortune’s arm. She never could resist the fun of poking at a fire to see it burn a little more. “That good, am I?” she teases, the predatory purr that the bounty hunter likes so much returning to her tone.

“I couldn’t say, I’m so _old_ I’m afraid I don’t remember,” she murmurs, smirking.

“It’s all that seawater in your head,” taunts the assassin.

They share a long look, and she can see Katarina is considering it. She makes her decision pretty quickly. “Buy me a drink,” Kat says, and Fortune knows it’s because she likes the power, not because she can’t afford to buy it herself. “Tell me more about the dipshit who thinks he can pay you to hunt me down, and then I’ll take you home and fuck you until you can’t walk back to your little boat without staggering.”

Fortune chortles and pushes herself to her feet. She draws her knuckles boldly up the exposed length of Kat’s throat as she walks past to go to the bar.

“Tell yourself whatever makes you happy, darlin’,” she replies. “We all know tomorrow you’ll be the one struggling to get her sea legs back.”


End file.
